The Grinch

Julia has been big into singing the song that the Whos down in Whoville sing on Christmas Day. She's got the tune right, but that's about the only thing. "FABU FORREST, CHRISTMAS HELPING, Chirstmas bells todaaaaay....":

Gar animals

"Mama, do you know what gar animals are? They're mean, mean creatures. And Mama, do you know what gar animals eat? MAMMALS! And they live in the WOODS. They live in the kind of woods where foxes live. They play with the foxes and run around with the foxes and play all day. And do you know what? If a person comes up to a gar animal, the gar animal EATS THE PERSON! And do you know, gar animals can even hide from thunderstorms. They have a long shiny nose, and do you know what they exactly are? GARGOYLES!"

Colgate Total

Well, I was not expecting to hear this from Julia as she was brushing her teeth this evening, but hey, I'm glad to realize I've been letting her watch this tv show to excess: "On Max and Ruby, it says: 'Colgate Total. Advanced whitening and germ-fighting technology to kill germs. Colgate Total."

I'm guessing this is a commercial she's quoting, rather than the actual Max and Ruby episode, because there's certainly nothing nearly so intelligent in that show. Double-glad to realize she's paying such close attention to the ads...

A few noteworthy quotes

Julia took it upon herself to get her own yogurt out of the fridge while I was drying my hair. She brought it over to me as I was drying the last few strands and asked me to pull the foil lid off of the yogurt for her. I promised her I would do it in just a minute, as soon as I was done, to which she cried, "No, but Mama! We have to hurry and eat it all, before it gets RAW!"

I, on the other hand, was trying to make my raw food items into cooked food items for lunch, and was attempting to get the burners on the gas stove to work so I could boil some eggs. The flame would continuously light on just one half of the burner, until eventually it wouldn't light at all. I said that I was probably going to have to ask Daddy to come help me, but Julia reminded me, "No, Mama, Daddy doesn't like to be interrupt." While I'm pleased that she understands that Daddy doesn't like to be interrupt when he's working (although she occasionally disregards that preference to go upstairs and ask him if she looks so cute in her outfit), I would love it if she would realize that I ALSO don't like to be interrupt when I'm trying to do something important - as in the phone call a few days ago during which she demanded I tell her how to spell "gate."

And speaking of Daddy, Julia and I had this conversation about him, among other people, in the car on the way to swim lessons:

JULIA: Mama, Madeleine's so great.
ME: She sure is. I think so too. I really love her.
JULIA: And me too.
ME: Oh, I'm so glad you love your sister.
JULIA: No, me too, I'm so great.
ME: You're right! You're SO SO SO great. I love you so much too!
JULIA: Yeah, because, I was thinking, I remembered that's what Daddy told me.
ME: Daddy told you that you're so great?
JULIA: Yeah, I was thinking that I remembered that Daddy said that.
ME: Well, that's because it's true!
JULIA: Yeah, I know.

I almost broke out with Yia-yia's "She's so great, oh she's so great, oh Julia is so G-G-G-G-G-GREAT!" song, but alas, we had arrived at the pool so it will have to wait for some other time.

Big sister helper

This evening, I was sitting on the couch while the girls played in the living room, when suddenly Madeleine came crawling towards me, wailing, with something reddish around her lips. I picked her up and realized that she was bleeding, and figuring she must have bitten into her top lip with her brand new bottom teeth, I took a look up top and sure enough, found the little wound. There was only a tiny little bit of bleeding, and it seemed that she was more interested in a comforting snuggle than anything else, so I cradled her in my arms. I told Julia I had a really important job for her, and asked her to run upstairs to Madeleine's room and get the pacifier from her crib (normally only offered to her at nap and bedtime.) Julia asked why Madeleine needed her pacifier when it wasn't time to go to sleep, so I told her that Madeleine's lip was bleeding and I thought she needed something to help calm her down. Julia ran upstairs, on a mission, and a few minutes later she came thumping down the stairs, pacifier in hand. When she got back into the living room, she handed me the pacifier, then triumphantly held out her other hand, exclaiming, "AND, Mama, I brought you THIS!" showing me a tube of triple antibiotic ointment that we've used to dress the bandages on Julia's various scrapes and scuffs. She then advised me, "Mama, if she's bleeding, then I think you might want to use that." I almost didn't have the heart to explain to her that I couldn't actually use it on Madeleine's mouth, but seeing as Julia likes to be a second mother to Madeleine and help out even when not asked, I didn't want to take the chance that Julia would take it into her own hands to administer the ointment somewhere down the line... at any rate, bleeding was soon over, pacifier was much appreciated, and Madeleine was over it as soon as she saw something on the floor that was more interesting than being cooped up in Mommy's arms.

Words

Yesterday afternoon, Julia was playing with her Winnie-the-Pooh computer and accompanying educational cards; the basic gist is that she inserts a card, and the fake Winnie-the-Pooh voice asks her all kinds of questions related to the pictures on the cards. ("Is the kite to the left or the right of Piglet?" "What letter does kite begin with?" Do you know how to spell the word cloud?" etc.) While she loves playing these games, Ethan and I are not as into it, since we are the ones who have to answer her questions about how to spell words and what letters they begin with (for example, when I was on a very important phone call and she was screaming into the kitchen at me, "Mama! Mama! But I need to know what letter the word GATE begins with!") Ethan decided to give Julia some skills to be able to figure out these things on her own, so when she asked him how to spell the word "chair," he instructed her to find the chair in the picture. Then he asked, "And what letters do you see there?" Julia's response was: "Uh... C, D, A, I, SEVEN!" Hmm. Not quite ready to do the spelling on her own yet, I guess.

On another language-based topic, Ethan and I are both fairly certain Madeleine has spoken her first word, but one can never be 100% sure with baby babbles. She has taken to saying, "Ba. Ba. Ba," when she is playing with a ball of any sort. In fact, when she saw Julia on her giant hop ball out in the backyard yesterday, she started crawling over in delight, squawking "Ba! Ba! Ba!" However, "ba" is not exactly an uncommon sound for a baby to make. It is entirely possible that she is just vocalizing and baby-babbling and we're ascribing meaning to it. It doesn't help that she only wants to say it on her own terms. If I try to give her a ball and sit there cooing at her, "See the ball? Where's the ball? Can you say ball?" she looks at me with complete disinterest. If SHE is the one who discovers the ball and goes crawling off after it ecstatically, she is highly likely to start with the "Ba. Ba. Ba." business. So, it may be an first actual word, which is exciting, or we may just be delusional parents imagining our child is way more advanced than she really is. Time shall tell!

Boomerskating

Julia has invented a new kind of sport called "boomerskating." In order to boomerskate, one first must have the appropriate outfit on. Here is what the boomerskating get-up should look like:




Basically, from what I've gathered, boomerskating involves dressing up as shown above, then taking one high-heeled shoe and resting it on one of the rods connecting the wheels of a baby stroller, and finally, using the other foot to push off from the ground so that the stroller rolls along with the boomerskater riding on it. Or, if my explanation is not satisfactory, I can offer Julia's description of the sport:

"Boomerskating means, like, you skate in the rain. Because, like, it can cool you off. Because your feet are wet, so sometimes you like to do it in the rain. Boomerskating is kind of like roller skating; you roll on your feet, with shoes on, in the rain. Okay? That's how you boomerskate. And Boomerskating is a type of skate. The stroller is the boomerskate."

I then asked her, "What do you do when you boomerskate?" Her response was: "Like, you know, just talk to other people you meet, and look for people, and you can boomerskate over to the fireworks, and anything you can do is to boomerskate."

Does that clear it up? If not, here are some pictures of her in action so you can see the boomerskating process:





Madeleine does not boomerskate, but she did decide to try and play the Irish pennywhistle. I told her it would be a little easier if she tried using it right-side up:






That's better.



Uh-oh. Stuffed it in too far and gagged herself. Needless to say, that toy went away and has been deemed inappropriate for a 10-month-old.